I don't own Superman or Batman. This was inspired by a scene in the animated short Death in the Family, and is connected to my previous stories We Are Not Friends and But I'm the Joker.
Lex stared at the photo in his hands, placed inside a good green and purple frame as a joke. Despite his sadism and lack of empathy the Joker could occasionally make jokes that would put a smile on his face. He made the frame green and purple as a reminder that he knew those were Lex's favourite colour, with the picture being of when he kidnapped Lex to celebrate his birthday even though it wasn't his birthday. But the Joker won't be able to make Lex smile anymore because the Joker was dead, killed in an alleyway to be found by a bunch of kids who had been stealing from a store next to it. According to the reports one of the kids had tripped over the corpse, the owner had screamed when he saw the Joker and ended up begging for his life before finally realising the man was dead. An investigation of the bullet along with help from the city's Caped Crusader meant the GCPD were able to trace it back to a drug addict named Jonny Frost, who kept insisting he killed the Trickster instead of the Joker. If he was still alive Lex imagined he would be worshipped as a God by the people of Gotham and made their mayor for what he did.
At first nobody believed it, especially not Lex. When he heard the news he immediately had his best people from Cadmus and Luthorcorp go to Gotham in order to test the body. After all they live in a world where mythological exists alongside the extraterrestrial, where the dead can come back within less than a year and the impossible is made possible every day. So it could be that this dead Joker was a clone, or the Joker from another universe or maybe even some idiot who decided to dress up as the Joker to prank his friends. He also had some men sent to interrogate Frost, wanting to find out if he was lying and if he wasn't have him dealt with, but after several hours they confirmed that he wasn't lying about what he did.
Apparently he wants the only one who thought like this as Batman was also doing his investigations, with kryptonian technology he had taken from Superman, and even the Riddler was spotted investigating the Joker's death. The clown never mentioned if he was close to the green suit wearing man, so Lex was a little surprised to hear about that. It had been difficult for them to get to the body as all of Gotham was celebrating and some were even trying to harm the corpse because they could, but at the same time that meant nobody asked too many questions about why his scientists were there. And eventually they told him that the body in that morgue was without a doubt the Joker, not a clone or alternate universe counterpart or magical doppelganger but the Joker he knew and...who's company he occasionally enjoyed.
Lex looked up from the photo and handed it to Mercy, his amazonian bodyguard thankfully saying nothing about what they were doing. She in turn handed him the black urn with green and black lines recently painted on, which Lex was ashamed to admit he had painted when he had gotten drunk during his mourning of the clown. Yes he was mourning, that's why he had an urn containing the Joker's ashes and why he had bought Ace Chemicals.
Lex listened as Mercy walked away with the photo, and he stood there looking down at the vat of green chemicals. He clutched the urn close to his chest while wondering why he was acting this way, plenty of people had died in the past and he had killed many more. He had never gotten like this about anyone except when his mother died, but he had been nine at the time so that was to be expected and understood. He was a grown man now, he shouldn't be this attached to a psychopathic who never helped make a situation better and instead made things even worse. But for some reason after being told that it was the Joker's corpse, he had the body cremated and placed in this urn. He had never been so sentimental in his life as he rarely visited his mother's grave anymore, because while he knows an afterlife in possible he didn't see much point in visiting a corpse. After a few days of constantly thinking about it he knew he had to find a way to say goodbye to the Joker so he could put it behind him and focus on the goals in his life.
He thought about it for sometime but he eventually came to accept that Ace Chemicals would be the perfect place to scatter the Joker's ashes. He knew practically nothing about the man's past and he was certain that anything he was told was a lie, but what he did know was that this place was important to the Joker. He often said that he was truly born in those chemicals and Lex supposed that it was true in a way, so it felt right to return what was left of him to this place. Lex has never done anything like that before but he honesty didn't know what else to do, besides creating a gun so he could shoot the ashes into Batman's face. While the Joker would most definitely prefer that option as Lex once saw him slip a piece of a man's dead wife into his drink as a joke, that would be a little risky for Lex and he still thinks the Joker would like this.
He slowly undid the lid of the urn and held it out, wondering if he should say something. He looked down into the green chemicals and did his best to ignore the smell, hoping some words words would come to him so he could articulate how he felt in this moment. But a great and epic speech didn't come, so instead he spoke simply.
"Goodbye Joker."
And with that he turned the urn upside down and watched as the ashes fell into the vat, and once it was empty he put the lid back on. He held the urn in his hands as he stated at the vat for a few minutes, be for straightening his back and walking away.
Tell me what you think and if there are spelling mistakes or sentences that don't make sense. I know this is pretty out of character for someone like Lex, but I really liked the idea of it.